Did the animal do what you expected at the shot?

[Okanagan]

A comment I made about my buck this past Fall doing what I expected at the shot, and then pitw needling me about my comment got me to thinking.  That was a month or two ago, which shows how fast I think.  I've learned to pay attention when an animal does not react to a shot as expected.  Of course, this is for experienced and/or disciplined hunters who have a pretty good idea where their bullet is intended to hit.

I've had several critters that I shot NOT do what I expected.  Most of the time when that has happened it has not been good.  I lost a 5x5 bull elk that way, and came close to losing a large bull moose. 

In the case of the elk, I aimed tight behind his shoulder as he walked steeply downhill broadside to me at less than 100 yards.  I expected a double lung shot and expected the bull to either keep walking or run a short distance and then fall over.  Instead, he dropped like a stone and rolled over down the hill with his legs flashing in the air on each revolution.  In my mind a little warning light flashed that something was not right and that the shot must not have gone where I intended.  I should have paid attention to that warning. 

My non-hunting partner and I walked up to the unconscious bull and decided to let him expire while we  radioed to a hunter friend on top of the hill and told him where the rest of the herd was heading.  Meanwhile behind our backs, the bull I'd hit got up and ran off.  We tracked him for 8 ½ hours and deduced from smears of blood that he was hit through the withers above the spine and not injured nor bleeding much.  Two weeks later we saw him seemingly recovered and with his herd again.

At the moment of my shot he had lurched his front end down into a low spot and my bullet had hit him higher than intended.  For want of a finisher the bull was lost. 

A large bull moose looking at me with his hackles up about 7 feet from me did not go down the way I expected him to at my shot.  I intended to hit spine and expected him to drop like a stone.  Instead he sort of folded slowly, and lay there with his eyes squinted quivering shut and hooves twitching.  I could not see a mark on him to indicate where I'd hit him but I've seen butchered animals killed quickly, and this one did not look right.  I put a finisher in his head and went on pushing bush toward my partner. Good thing I put in the finisher.  He was hit through his hump between bones, barely bled a drop through his long hair, and would have gotten up and left with a sore neck had I not shot him again. 

Sometimes animals do not react to fatal hits like you would expect, but I don't trust such reactions and do what I have to to make sure that they are dead.  That has kept me from losing several marginally hit or even missed animals (and put an extra bullet in a few).  My best whitetail buck did not drop as I expected when he was a dozen feet from the muzzle of my rifle.  Unknown to me the bullet had hit a stick just in front of the muzzle and deflected enough to miss the whole buck!  He ran out a ways and paused.  I put what I thought was a finisher in him-- and it was the only bullet in him!

I know it is a hard suggestion to remember to follow in the moment of shooting,  but it helps to be aware of whether the animal reacts like expected if the shot went where intended. 

P.S A broader way to put this is to ask, "How did the critter react at the shot?  What does his reaction tell me?"